Sunday, July 25, 2010

Playgrounds have a menacing atmosphere. I would probably feel safer at a Biker Bar.

Listening to a Radio Derb podcast -- don't ask me to cite the date, time, and verse -- John Derbyshire mentioned a Chuckie Cheese's restaurant being a bigger source of trouble for police than a local biker bar. I can now see why this would be so after having spent thirty minutes at a pay-as-you-go-playground in downtown Wuxi. Chuckie Cheese's is a restaurant that caters to toddlers like the playground I was at yesterday with Tony. I found that playground to have a menacing atmosphere yesterday because the children were often mean and rude to each other. I saw a boy take a toy from another boy. I saw a boy carjack Tony as he sat in a sit-in toy car. I saw a boy flip over the same small sit-in car when it had a little girl in it. Eventually, these incidents lead to conflicts among the parents.

Jenny told me of a girl slapping Tony for no particular reason. Tony, being a gentleman, I hope, did not respond in kind by hitting the little woman. But what really raised Jenny's ire was the fact that the girl's parent laughed at the incident. She swore at the woman and it escalated.

Kind as Wuxiren can be, they unfortunately have cruel, barbaric, and loutish manners.